BRIDGIT HENRY GEORGE SAUNDERS George Saunders became famous for writing darkly funny stories that unfolded in strange and seedy theme parks that existed in a sort of limbo. On the one hand, the stories seemed Memory Diver, 2006 to take place in a not-so-distant future. At the same time, the Woodcut, 30 x 30 in The Haunting hapless employees of those parks were obsessed with recreat- ing the past. In his celebrated story “CivilWarLand in Bad Charnel grounds, ghosts, Decline,” an actual Confederate ghost comingles, hilariously, and fictive realities: with ghostly holograms. Saunders’s new novel, Lincoln In The Bardo, takes place in a clamorous Georgetown cemetery Dan White interviews during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. Glancing at the first few paragraphs, even Saunders die-hards may be flum- George Saunders moxed; where are the author’s fingerprints? Is this a jarring break from the past? But the deeper they delve into the new one, the more they will see Saunders’s impressions– the wild surrealistic and absurdist flourishes. Angry spirits with un- finished business may bring back memories of the implacable and potty-mouthed zombie grandmother in his short story “Sea Oak.” The early stories disarmed the readers with their finely tuned comedy, only to drop them down through a trap door leading somewhere unexpected – a revelation, heartache, an act of violence. The new novel does something close to the reverse; it allows for tenderness and hilarity in the last place where you would ever expect to find such things. In March, Catamaran reached Saunders in the midst of his busy tour to promote Bardo. Here is our interview, which covered everything from Victorian attitudes about death to the way his engineering background informs the structure of his writing. —Dan White

Dan White: I was just thinking about all the unsettled ghosts in your work, even before you wrote this latest nov- el, Lincoln in the Bardo, whose main character is Willie, Abraham Lincoln’s son who died at a young age. There’s the ghost boy in your story “The Wavemaker Falters” that haunts the man who kills him accidentally and imagines his life going forward, and there’s also the incredibly pro- fane zombie grandmother in “Sea Oak.” I’m wondering what is it about these unsettled phantasms that just keeps taking ahold of you and pulling you back.

George Saunders: It’s about making sure the story has energy. A lot of times, I’ll be working in a pretty real- ist mode. You know, normal people. And then somehow COURTESY THE ARTIST

CATAMARAN 97 the story will just seem insufficiently energetic. Turning I would discover a new rule, I would have to go back and we assume that carapace—a long process that Willie is Dan White: Your new novel dramatizes an attitude to those ghosts is just one way of kind of shattering that revise accordingly. only at the beginning of. So, it’s really just a matter of pac- about death that may be utterly foreign to twenty-first- frame that we tend to be in when we think in a realistic I really just was playing, but then the plot would actu- ing. I think, also, part of the motive there was to keep him century Western minds. It seems to me that maybe the framework. So that’s one level. ally teach me a rule. For example, the rule in the book that in one place so he wasn’t free to run around the whole Victorians were just more up-front about death. They en- There’s also this notion that we all share that we’ll all all children aren’t allowed to stay in this world of ghosts in graveyard. It seemed better that he be anchored in one gaged in it a different way than we do now. be living forever and that we’re totally in control of our phe- the graveyard—that came about because I needed a narra- place and the other people could move around. nomena. But we know it isn’t true. For instance when you tive driver. If it would be okay for Willie to stay there and it So I had to have some active way of constantly re- George Saunders: For sure. I think much more visit a historical place, you’re in a room where hundreds was the happy place for kids, then in a way, I wouldn’t have minding the reader that things were getting worse for him. healthy. One of the moments in the book is when Lincoln of people have been, a good number of whom have died. a very good story. There was a kind of a back calculation I When I’m working on something, it’s very technical. And is actually looking at his son’s body. I think how these days That’s pretty crazy. So, I find myself wanting to tell the real did when I thought, “Oh, it would be really wonderful if it’s always a technicality that’s moored in a particular scene. we have this idea that as soon as death has happened, the truth of that in fiction. Realism just involves the senses and it were dangerous for him to stay.” body is suddenly a corpse. Scary, yucky, get it out of here. what’s happening right now, apparently, right in front of us. Then the second part of that was to try to make it Dan White: Is that where your background, as an engi- But really, if you love somebody, the gateway to your love In the story “Sea Oak” that you mentioned, I didn’t have plausible that it’s dangerous for him. To make the rules neer, geophysicist comes in? In the writing process? is the physicality, the way they move and smell and the any idea that she would die or come back from the grave. seem organic, so that the reader doesn’t exactly notice the contours of their body. It would be really strange if your The story was kind of dictating that. And the story killed contrivance, notice the machinery. George Saunders: For sure. It’s very much related to love ended the minute they died just because the spark her. And then the story wanted her back. In a certain way In other places, I was just kind of just using other mathematical proofs for me. I really believe in the fictive left the body. I don’t think that’s the case. I think part of the ghost tendency is just a way of mechanically enacting sources. Like the Tibetan Book of the Dead and just basic moments when I’m doing them. I’m not trying to make the grieving process would probably be to let that settle in. that which the story seems to want to do. ghost mythology that comes to us through movies and TV a conceptual show or trying to illustrate a point. I’m just The presence of the body would be pretty helpful. It’s never because I’m simply fascinated with ghosts. and everything else. I’m kind of a pop culture geek and believing the people, or in this case, the ghosts as real And it’s not really even that I want to talk about death. It’s I like ghosts. I like supernatural stuff. As you’re saying, I things. That’s one thing. But the second thing is almost Dan White: The attitude about death that you talk just the story itself has a certain thing that it wants to do. did have to be strict about it. I had to be absolutely sure like an equation, where I think if my character does A about in the novel, it seems like it’s part of a whole system. For me, it’s mostly about trying to keep the energy up. of what the rules are so I could make the characters react then there’s three possible results. Or if he does B, there’s I know that the Tibetan tradition has a very frank relation to the rules. this specific outcome. It is a matrix-like cause and effect to the dead body; some monks even meditate in the char- Dan White: I look at the graveyard community that thing that’s in my mind. When I’m rewriting, it’s a bit like nel grounds where bodies are lying around and birds are you’ve created in your new novel, Lincoln in the Bardo. It Dan White: Speaking of those rules, I was especially playing a chess game. I can kind of feel, if I do this move, feeding on them. This frank attitude towards death seems feels strangely plausible to me. In the sense that there are fascinated by the concept of the carapace of these ghostly here are the consequences. If I do this move, here are alien to a lot of Western people. certain rules and constraints that govern the ghosts. Even vines that were made up of the sort of lost souls. I just the consequences. Then there’s a sense, a vague sense, of the way a ghost can kind of change form or stretch, almost kept thinking of Rodin’s Gates of Hell. The way that these which move is going to be more powerful. Then I know George Saunders: Actually, I don’t think it’s that alien. like taffy in the way they merge consciousnesses and bod- lost souls are incorporated into the architecture of the to go in that direction, execute it, do a lot of rewriting to One of the books I found when I was researching was, it’s ies, even take on additional limbs. I just want to know how gate. I want to know how it was that you discovered that make sure it works. But often a move will end up to be a called, A Lesson in Dying. It’s an old Christian text. Basi- it was that you worked out the particular cosmology and carapace concept, which creates the sense of peril in the dead end. So, it’s very intuitive. I’m doing a lot of iterative cally, it’s an almost unbearable reiteration of the Buddhist the rules that govern this place. graveyard. work every day. A lot of these decisions, I can’t really trace idea that if you think you’re permanent, you’re an idiot, them back to when I “decided” them. Because I didn’t you’re just deluding yourself. That the way to get right with George Saunders: That’s a very astute observation. George Saunders: Oh thanks. If you’re gonna make really. I feel my way along and then I look up one day and, God is to say, “I’m this little temporary blooming phenom- And not a lot of people are picking up on that. I think a seven-minute film in which a baby falls over a cliff— in this case, I’ve made up this carapace idea. I honestly enon, and I can look down the road and see everybody’s in a certain way, I still am a realist. Because in realism, which I hope you’re not, but if you are—then you know don’t exactly remember where it came from. It was more dropping to the grave.” The idea is that as healthy as you when we do conventional realism, we’re doing just what for it to be wonderful, you have to fill every minute up responsive to what was going on in a particular moment. might feel right now, the trajectory is towards disease and you said: honoring certain rules. We live in this world. We with tension. You will want that whole seven minutes to When we learn about writing in school, we always as- towards death. The Buddhist ideas are sometimes present- know there are physical and social rules. And we’re sort of be full of a gradual progression towards the baby going sume that the writer had an intention and just executed it. ed in a way that’s a little unusual to us. I think at the core, demonstrating them. over the cliff. I knew that a lot of my tension depended But my experience is the opposite. I go in, at first, and the my sense is all the spiritual traditions say the same thing. I think the same thing with the crazy, supernatural on Willie being understood to be in peril. So the pacing only intention is to make something good—to honor the Here’s how I understand it. In every moment, maybe world. It’s the boundaries that make the meaning. When of that had to be good. I needed specific markers to show particular fictive moment. And then along the way, these for Darwinian reasons, we’re very deluded. Our thoughts I was working on this, I was discovering the rules and then us how close he is. In other words, we see the Traynor girl millions of microdecisions create a much more complex are constantly telling us that we’re real and that we are I was living by them. And if, for example, late in the game early. Her deal is she’s become part of the fence by what pattern than I could ever have thought of in advance. separate. I think all those spiritual traditions have different

98 George Saunders CATAMARAN 99 ways to break down that idea. Why? I think partly to make Dan White: In other nonfiction pieces when you’ve some reading. Every time I stumbled on some backstory My life in California is much more active than my life the end easier. If you really understood that, it wouldn’t traveled abroad and gone to various places, there was an about Willie and his death, I would find it more emotion- was in upstate New York. It’s really good to keep putting surprise you when you die. As much, I guess. underpinning of some research there. In this novel you’re ally compelling. challenges in front of yourself. My goal would be to keep But I think in a more positive sense, it’s to make your writing in fiction, but you have these verbatim chunks of By the time I went to write the novel, I had a lot of expanding as a person and as a writer. Till I die at 397 years day-to-day life more meaningful. If we really believe that research incorporated into the text. I just wanted to know feelings about it, and a lot of those feelings were inspired old. Just having published my eightieth novel. idea, that we were just these little flowers; that we have about the ripple effects those created in your fictional by the facts that I had heard or read. At some point it just only have a brief time in the sun, then imagine what that graveyard. What was it like for you as a creator to incor- became natural to invite the facts in to support my attempt would do to your day-to-day interactions. porate those blocks of actual letters and factual research to replicate my own emotional effect for you the reader. I think about those times when we’re so split wide open from other people and introduce them into your fictional by the death of somebody we love. It’s a different state of be- graveyard? Dan White: How are you enjoying your time in Santa ing in those four or five days after we lose somebody. We’re Cruz? I hear you’ve been spending more time out here wide open and almost like a different species altogether. George Saunders: On a mechanical level, I felt I lately. I’m just wondering how that has affected your cre- could get away with more speculation if I had that fac- ative life? If there might even be echoes of this in your Dan White: Another way of looking at Lincoln in the tual spine. It was almost like a counterweight. I would future writings? Bardo might be to look at this graveyard as an illustration have a section of the ghost and I’m asking my readers to for the experience of creating this book and sharing it with go with me in a lot of weird directions. Like when those George Saunders: It might be a problem because readers. The spirits keep talking about the mysterious ar- angels come, there’s a lot of great orchestration of weird we’re so happy there. It’s so beautiful. And the people are chitecture of the place. Who is this architect and what is physical things. I could almost feel that the reader might so unbelievably nice that I think I just might have to quit he doing to us? And it’s you the writer who is doing it. want a sense of relief from that with some apparent facts writing because I can’t find any misery. And just as these spirits can kind of pass into a person lined up. We really love it. It’s an incredibly welcoming place. and temporally occupy them and come together, it remind- My whole theory about the writer and the reader is And the physical beauty of it is just staggering. I teach at ed me of the transference of consciousness of one person to for us to be in a very intimate communication. Very inti- Syracuse [University] during the fall, and the idea is that another. You the writer to me the reader, in a sense. mate. The reader has to trust me and I have to have my we will split time back and forth. It’s so nice to be out there. eye on her so closely. To know how she’s feeling about me. I always was a big Steinbeck fan and a big Neal Cassady, George Saunders: You’re my ideal reader. That’s per- Almost like a date you know? I have to watch her. Is her Jack Kerouac guy. And I also love Jack London. So Cali- fect. I agree with that. I hope people read it that way. I attention lagging? Oh it is, hmm. Why? Well I’ve been fornia just opened something up in me. think it had something to do with what I mentioned ear- too long in ghost world. What would help her to believe I made a trip there when I was in my twenties. I drove lier. My belief that fictive reality is very strong. During the in me again? Facts. down the coast. It was so beautiful and literary. So to find George Saunders is the author of nine books, including four years I was working on it, it was as real to me as any- Or, to look at it another way, I’ve always had a lot of myself actually living here is just like a dream. We’re very Tenth of December, which was a finalist for the National Book thing in the world. Maybe realer in some ways because I fun with humor. When I was a kid it was my way of coping happy. All my books are going to be about happy people Award and won the inaugural Folio Prize (for the best work of fiction in English) and the Story Prize (best short story could actually alter it. with the world. If I wanted to charm somebody or get out of being really nice to each other. That’ll be a real snore! collection). He has received MacArthur and Guggenheim I think that somehow all those kinds of secondary trouble, or diffuse a difficult situation, I’d always be funny. Fellowships, as well as the PEN/Malamud Prize for Excellence metafictional effects and the psychological effects carry I also had a really earnest sentimental streak. In my writ- Dan White: Except for our biblical bout of rain this win- in Short Fiction, and was recently elected to the American over. I think they get triggered when the author really ing, I just found a way to accommodate those two different ter! I think that’s more along the lines of a story. Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2013, he was named one of the world’s one hundred most influential people by Time inhabits that world with no irony and no remove. Those excesses. I’m looking at the reader trying to see where she magazine. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at characters, I was thinking about them all the time. In revi- is. And then correcting. At the same time, having a great George Saunders: I know. I was just leaving when that Syracuse University. sion, I was refining them all the time. I think that’s why deal of respect for the reader. Assuming the reader is very happened. Dan White is the author of , an irreverent his- that effect happens. smart and very kindhearted and very attentive. There’s something nice about changing course now Under the Stars tory of American camping, and The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost Again, I almost don’t want to think about it too much. In a way, the facts stuff was just a way of correcting and then that is really artistically important, in a more gen- My Mind and Almost Found Myself on the Pacific Crest Trail, Because I don’t want to be self-aware about it. Ever since course a little bit every now and then. eral sense, that part of the artistic life that keeps stabilizing a Northern California Independent Booksellers Association I’ve been writing, I have this thing where I take that fictive I was moved by the factual story of Abraham Lincoln your self in some way. I’m very settled in at Syracuse. I love bestseller and Los Angeles Times Discovery selection. He has taught composition at Columbia University and San Jose role really seriously. It is a game, but it’s a game in which mourning for his son Willie in the graveyard. Between upstate New York. It’s been kind of good to just say, “Well, State. He is the contributing editor of Catamaran Literary I believe 100 percent. I’m glad you read it that way, that’s the time when I heard this story and the time I began yeah. It’s a beautiful place. Here’s another beautiful place!” Reader and received his MFA from Columbia University. He wonderful. writing about this story, I had done some research and To not to have your identity be too tied into your geography. lives in Santa Cruz, California, with his wife and daughter.

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